


Boy of Perfection

by nayeli_roldan04



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, RMS Titanic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nayeli_roldan04/pseuds/nayeli_roldan04
Summary: He was Scott,He was Isaac,Titanic was their ship of love,Which sank in the freezing ocean of doubts.
Relationships: Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall, Scisaac
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. The Drawing of The Unknown Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lahey_14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lahey_14/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now a picture can speak a thousand words, but a person could do it so much better," he said as he looked at the men before him with a smirk before sipping from his mug of steaming coffee. 
> 
> "Mr. Lovett, I suggest you get your popcorn and tape recorders ready because, boy, do I have a story to tell you..."

Blackness.

Then two faint lights appear, close together... growing brighter. Two deep submersibles are free falling like express elevators as they descend down into the black abyss. One is ahead of the other, and passes close, looking like a spacecraft blazing with lights, bristling with insectile manipulators. They continue to descend further and further away into the limitless blackness below. Soon they are fireflies, then stars. Then gone.

One of the falling submersibles is called Mir One **.** It is a cramped seven foot sphere, crammed with equipment. Anatoly Mikailavich, the sub's pilot, sits hunched over his controls... singing softly in Russian. Next to him on one side is Brock Lovett. He's in his late forties, deeply tanned, and likes to wear his Nomex suit unzipped to show the gold from famous shipwrecks covering his gray chest hair. He is a wiley, fast-talking treasure hunter, a salvage superstar who is part historian, part adventurer and part vacuum cleaner salesman. Right now, he is propped against the CO2 scrubber, fast asleep and snoring. On the other side, crammed into the remaining space is a bearded wide-body named Lewis Bodine, who is also asleep. Lewis is an R.O.V. (REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLE) pilot and is the resident Titanic expert. 

Anatoly glances at the bottom sonar and makes a ballast adjustment. A pale, dead-flat lunar landscape. It gets brighter, lit from above, as Mir One drops to the seafloor in a downblast from its thrusters. It hits bottom after its two hour free-fall. Lovett and Bodine jerk awake at the landing.

"We are here." Anatoly says with his thick Russian accent.

Minutes later and the two subs skim over the seafloor to the sound of sidescan sonar and the thrum of big thrusters. The featureless gray clay of the bottom unrolls in the lights of the subs. Bodine is watching the sidescan sonar display, where the outline of a huge pointed object is visible. Anatoly lies prone, driving the sub, his face pressed to the center port.

"Come left a little. She's right in front of us, eighteen meters." Bodine spoke, "Fifteen. Thirteen... you should see it.'

Anatoly scoffs, "Do you see it? I don't see it..."

There! Out of the darkness, like a ghostly apparition, the bow of the ship appears. Its knife-edge prow seemed to plow the bottom sediment like ocean waves. It towers above the seafloor, standing just as it landed 84 years ago. The Titanic. Or what is left of her. Mir One goes up and over the bow railing, intact except for an overgrowth of "rusticles" draping it like mutated Spanish moss.

Tight on the eyepiece monitor of a video camcorder, Brock Lovett's face fills the colorful frame of the camera.

"It still gets me every time," Lovett spoke in a voice filled with awe as he looked at the sight before him, amazed. The camera pans to the front viewport, looking over Anatoly's shoulder, to the bow railing visible in the lights beyond.

Anatoly turns with a face of astonishment, "Is just your guilt because of estealing from the dead."

Brock operates the camera himself, turning it in his hand so it points at his own face.

He continues to document, "It still gets me every time... to see the sad ruin of the great ship sitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912, after her long fall from the world above." Anatoly rolls his eyes at his dramatics and mutters in Russian.

Bodine chuckles and watches the sonar, "You are so full of shit, boss." 

Mir Two drives aft down the starboard side, past the huge anchor while Mir One passes over the seemingly endless forecastle deck, with its massive anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, its bronze windlass caps gleaming. The 22 foot long subs are like white bugs next to the enormous wreck.

"Dive nine. Here we are again on the deck of Titanic... two and a half miles down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train going over an ant if our hull fails. These windows are nine inches thick and if they go, it's sayonara in two microseconds." Lovett documented.

Mir Two lands on the boat deck, next to the ruins of the Officer's Quarters. Mir One lands on the roof of the deck hous nearby.

Once positioned, Lovett orders his men to work, "Right. Let's go to work."

Bodine slips on a pair of 3-D electronic goggles, and grabs the joystick controls of the ROV. Outside the sub, the ROV, a small orange and black robot called Snoop Dog, lifts from its cradle and flies forward. Bodine jokes, " Just walkin' the dog." 

Snoop Dog drives itself away from the sub, paying out its umbilical behind it like a robot yo-yo. Its twin stereovideo cameras swivel like insect eyes. The ROV descends through an open shaft that once was the beautiful First Class Grand Staircase. Snoop Dog goes down several decks, then moves laterally into the First Class Reception Room. Snoop Dog moves through the cavernous interior with ease. The remains of the ornate hand-carved woodwork, which gave the ship its elegance, move through the floodlights, the lines blurred by slow dissolution and descending rusticle formations. Stalactites of rust hang down so that at times it looks like a natural grotto. The lines of a ghostly undersea mansion can be seen again. Snoop passes the ghostly images of Titanic's opulence: a grand piano in amazingly good shape, crashed on its side against a wall, the keys gleam black and white in the lights; a chandelier, still hanging from the ceiling by its wire... glinting as Snoop moves around it. Its lights play across the floor, revealing a champagne bottle, then some WHITE STAR LINE china... a woman's hightop "granny shoe". Then something eerie: what looks like a child's skull resolves into the porcelain head of a doll. Snoop enters a corridor which is much better preserved. Here and there a door still hangs on its rusted hinges. An ornate piece of molding, a wall sconce... it was the closing thing to a hint at the grandeur of the past. The ROV turns and goes through a black doorway, entering room B-52, the sitting room of a "promenade suite", one of the most luxurious staterooms on Titanic.

"I'm in the sitting room. Heading for bedroom B-54." Bodine says to Lovett, remote in hand.

Glinting in the lights are the brass fixtures of the near perfectly preserved fireplace. An albino Galathea crab crawls over it. Nearby are the remains of a divan and a writing desk. The Dog crosses the ruins of the once elegant room toward another door. It squeezes through the doorframe, scraping rust and wood chunks loose on both sides. It moves out of a cloud of rust and keeps on going. Once in the bedroom, the remains of a pillared canopy bed are seen. Broken chairs, a dresser. Through the collapsed wall of the bathroom, the porcelain commode and bathtub took almost new, gleaming in the dark.

Lovett grew anxious to find something, anything, "Okay, I want to see what's under that wardrobe door."

They see several angles as the ROV deploys its manipulator arms and starts moving debris aside. A lamp is lifted, its ceramic colors as bright as they were in 1912. Lewis grips a wardrobe door, lying at an angle in a corner, and pulls it with Snoop's gripper. It moves reluctantly in a cloud of silt. Under it is a dark object. The silt clears and Snoop's cameras show them what was under the door...

Bodine smiled, "Ooohh daddy-oh, are you seein' what I'm seein'?" Lovett turned to look at the monitors and he smiled at the sight. His expression showed that they had reached the holy grail of the Titanic.

He cheered, "Oh baby. It's payday, boys!"

In the glare of the lights, is the object of their quest: a small steel combination safe.

*~*~*~*~*

The safe, dripping wet in the afternoon sun, is lowered onto the deck of a ship by a winch cable. The ship is a Russian research vessel called Akademik Mistislav Keldysh. A crowd has gathered, including most of the crew of Keldysh, the sub crews, and a hand-wringing money guy named Bobby Buell who represents the limited partners. There is also a documentary video crew, hired by Lovett to cover his moment of glory. Everyone crowds around the safe. In the background Mir Two is being lowered into its cradle on deck by a massive hydraulic arm. Mir One is already recovered with Lewis Bodine following Brock Lovett as he bounds over to the safe like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Who's the best? Say it." Bodine teased.

Lovett rolled his eyes at the man as he shook his head with a smile, "You are, Lewis."

Brock nods to his technicians, and they set about drilling the safe's hinges. During this operation, Brock amps the suspense, working the lens to fill the time.

He begins to document, "Well, here it is, the moment of truth. Here's where we find out if the time, the sweat, the money spent to charter this ship and these subs, to come out here to the middle of the North Atlantic... were worth it. If what we think is in that safe... is _actually_ in that safe... we'll be rich!"

Lovett grins wolfishly in anticipation of his greatest find yet. The door is pried loose. It clangs onto the deck. Lovett moves closer, peering into the safe's wet interior. A long moment then... his face says it all. There was nothing.

Bodine broke the silence and tension, "You know, boss, this happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered." 

Lovett looked at him with pure anger in his eyes and a face of disappointment. He expended to find money or something, anything, that was worth a lot of money but instead, all he found was a safe with documents that were either destroyed or decayed. The expedition had taken an unexpected turn for the worst.

Or maybe not...

*~*~*~*~*

Technicians are carefully removing some papers from the safe and placing them in a tray of water to separate them safely. Nearby, other artifacts from the stateroom are being washed and preserved. Buell is on the satellite phone with the investors of the expedition, and Lovett is yelling at the video crew.

"You send out what I tell you when I tell you. I'm signing your paychecks, not 60 minutes. Now get set up for the uplink." he yelled.

Buell covers the phone and turns to Lovett, a look of fear on his face.

"The partners want to know how it's going?" he asked in a shaky tone.

Lovett's eyes widened and he spoke in a frantic tone, "How it's going? It's going like a first date in prison, whattaya think?!"

Lovett grabs the phone from Buell and goes instantly smooth, "Hi, Dave? Barry? Look, it wasn't in the safe... no, look, don't worry about it, there're still plenty of places it could be... in the floor debris in the suite, in the mother's room, in the purser's safe on C deck..." He trails off at the sight of something, "Hang on a second."

A tech coaxes some letters in the water tray to one side with a tong... revealing a pencil (conte crayon) drawing of a boy.

Brock looks closely at the drawing, which is in excellent shape, though its edges have partially disintegrated. The boy is beautiful, and beautifully rendered. In his late teens or early twenties, he is nude, though posed with a kind of casual modesty. He is on an Empire divan, in a pool of light that seems to radiate outward from his eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner is the date: April 14,1912. And the initials SM. The boy is not entirely nude, though. At his throat is a diamond necklace with one large stone hanging in the center. Lovett grabs a reference photo from the clutter on the lab table. It is a period black-and-white photo of a diamond necklace on a black velvet jeller's display stand. He holds it next to the drawing. It is clearly the same piece... a complex setting with a massive central stone which is almost heart-shaped.

"Well, I'll be God damned." Brock said in amazement. He had found who had and wore the highly valuable diamond necklace last: the boy in the picture.

*~*~*~*~*

A CNN News Story: a live satellite feed from the deck of the Keldysh, intercut with the CNN studio. 

The announcer began to report, "Treasure hunter Brock Lovett is best known for finding Spanish gold in sunken galleons in the Caribbean. Now he is using deep submergence technology to work two and a half miles down at another famous wreck... the Titanic. He is with us live via satellite from a Russian research ship in the middle of the Atlantic... hello Brock?"

Brock smiled at the camera, "Yes, hi, Tracy. You know, Titanic is not just A shipwreck, Titanic is THE shipwreck. It's the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."

The CNN report played on a TV set in the living room of a small rustic elizabethan-style house. It is full of ceramics and the walls crammed with drawings and paintings... things collected. Outside it is a quiet morning in Ojai, California. In the studio, amid incredible clutter, a boy in his late teens or twenties is throwing a pot on a potter's wheel. The liquid red clay covers his hands... hands that are surprisingly strong and supple. A man in his mid-twenties assists him.

Brock's voice fills the room, "I've planned this expedition for three years, and we're out here recovering some amazing things... things that will have enormous historical and educational value."

"But it's no secret that education is not your main purpose. You're a treasure hunter. So what is the treasure you're hunting?" the CNN reporter asked.

"I'd rather show you than tell you, and we think we're very close to doing just that."

The boy's name is Isaac Lahey. His face is a mass of soft skin, his body toned and defined with feminine curves hidden underneath a burgundy clay-stained jumpsuit. Isaac gets up and walks into the living room, wiping pottery clay from his hands with a rag. A Siberian Husky dog gets up and comes in with him. The other man, Derek Hale, follows him into the room.

"Turn that up please, Der." Isaac says as he leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. Derek walks to the TV and turns up the volume, too lazy to search for the remote.

The reporter speaks, "Your expedition is at the center of a storm of controversy over salvage rights and even ethics. Many are calling you a grave robber."

"Nobody called the recovery of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb grave robbing. I have museum-trained experts here, making sure this stuff is preserved and catalogued properly. Look at this drawing, which was found today..." Lovett explained.

The video camera pans off Brock to the drawing, in a tray of water. The image of the boy with the necklace fills the frame.

Lovett continues, "...a piece of paper that's been underwater for 106 years... and my team are able to preserve it intact. Should this have remained unseen at the bottom of the ocean for eternity, when we can see it and enjoy it now...?"

Isaac is galvanized by this image. His mouth hangs open in amazement. It was a drawing of him on the screen.

"Well, I'll be damned." he said, still in shock from seeing the picture he thought he'd never see again.

Derek's eyes widened at the sight of the picture, "Isaac, is that...?" 

Isaac nods and looks at him, "I-I have to make a call."

*~*~*~*~*

The Mir subs are being launched. Mir Two is already in the water, and Lovett is getting ready to climb into Mir One when Bobby Buell runs up to him.

"There's a satellite call for you." he said to Lovett.

Lovett let out a sigh, "Bobby, we're launching. See these submersibles here, going in the water? Take a message."

"No, trust me, you want to take this call."

*~*~*~*~*

In the lab, Buell hands Lovett the phone, pushing down the blinking line. The call is from Isaac. He is in the kitchen with a mystified Derek. As soon as he saw the drawing he knew he had to call. It had been practically a century since the last time he saw it.

Lovett introduced himself, "This is Brock Lovett. What can I do for you, Mrs... ?"  
  
"Isaac Lahey." Buell corrected.

Lovett nodded and corrected himself, "... Mr. Lahey?"

Isaac took a deep breath before speaking, "I was just wondering if you found the "Heart of the Ocean" yet, Mr. Lovett."

Brock almost drops the phone. Bobby sees his shocked expression...  
  
"I told you you wanted to take this call." Buell said.  
  
Lovett raised the phone to his ear once again, "Alright. You have my attention, Isaac. Can you tell me who the boy in the picture is?"  
  
"Oh yes." Isaac said, pausing before speaking again, " The boy in that picture is... me."

*~*~*~*~*

An enormous sea stallion helicopter thunders across the ocean. There is no land at either horizon. The Keldysh is visible in the distance. Isaac is looking out the window calmly, Derek right beside him. Brock and Bodine are watching Mir 2 being swung over the side to start a dive.

"He's a goddamned liar!" Bodine ranted, "A nutcase. Like that... what's her name? That Anastasia babe."

Buell spoke, "They're inbound."

Brock nods and the three of them head forward to meet the approaching helocopter.

"He says he's Isaac Camden Lahey, right? Isaac Camden Lahey died on the Titanic. At the age of 17. If he'd've lived, he'd be way over a hundred now."

Lovett added on to Bodine, "A hundred and one next month."

Bodine scoffed, "Okay, so he's a very old goddamned liar. I traced him as far back as before the '20s... he was working as an actor and writer in L.A. An actor _and_ writer. His name was, in fact, Isaac Lahey. Then he moved to Cedar Rapids and from what I've heard Cedar Rapids is dead."

The Sea Stallion approaches the ship, BG, forcing Brock to yell over the rotors.

"And everybody who knows about the diamond is supposed to be dead... or on this ship. But he knows about it. And I want to hear what he has to say. Got it?" Lovett said.

In a thundering downblast the helicopter's wheels bounce down on the helipad. Lovett, Buell and Bodine watch as the helicopter crew chief hands out about four suitcase, and then Isaac walks out. Lvett, Buell, and Bodine's eyes widen at the sight of the boy. He _was_ truly the boy in the picture. Derek, ducking unnecessarily under the rotor, follows him out, carrying Freddy the Husky. 

Once they were given a tour, Derek and Isaac unpack their things in the small utilitarian room. Isaac places the one black and white photo he has as a memory of that day on the nightstand. Brock and Bodine are in the doorway.

"Is your stateroom alright?" Lovett asked.

Isaac nods, "Yeah. It's very nice, perfect actually. Have you met my friend, Derek? He's my roommate."

"I think so, Isaac. We met just a few minutes ago I believe, right?" Derek stated, unsure himself. There was so many people on the ship.

Lovett nodded, "Yes, we have met. Um, would you like anything?"

"I would like to see my drawing."

*~*~*~*~*

Isaac looks at the drawing in its tray of water, confronting himself across a span of 106 years. Until they can figure out the best way to preserve it, they have to keep it immersed. It sways and ripples, almost as if alive. Isaac's ancient eyes gaze at the drawing. A flashback of a boy's hand, holding a conte crayon deftly creating a shoulder and the shape of his hair with two efficient lines plays in Isaac's mind. The boy's face in the drawing, dancing under the water. Another flashback of the same boy's eyes, just visible over the top of a sketching pad. They look up suddenly right into his own. Soft eyes, but fearlessly direct. Isaac smiles, remembering. Brock has the reference photo of the necklace in his hand.

"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped too... recut into a heart-like shape... and it became _Le Coeur de la Mer._ The Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond." Lovett explained.

"It was a dreadful, heavy thing." Isaac pointed at the drawing, "I only wore it this once."

Derek was fascinated, "That really is you, huh?"  
  
"Yep, that's me, Der, just like I explained to you. Let me tell you, though, I sure am a hot number, both then and now." Isaac said with a smirk at his own words.

Lovett was still in complete and utter shock about Isaac Lahey. Many questions occupied his mind, the main one being: _How is this boy a Titanic survivor, still alive, and so young?_

"I tracked it down through insurance records... an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you happen to know who the claiment was, Isaac?" Lovett aked with wonder and fascination laced in his tone. He was talking to the youngest Titanic survivor known to date! It was truly an amazing thing. Weird, but amazing. Historic even, especially considering that the Titanic sunk practically a century ago and here was Isaac: alive and youthful as ever.

Isaac thought back for a moment, "Someone named Argent, I think. Ring any bells for you, Mr. Lovett?"

"Chris Argent, right. New York steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his daughter Allison Argent bought in France for her fiance...you... a week before she sailed on Titanic _._ And the claim was filed right after the sinking. So the diamond had to've gone down with the ship." Lovett explained. How could Isaac forget Allison Argent, his supposed bride-to-be. Mr. Lahey and Mr. Argent came to an agreement about an arranged marriage between Isaac and Allison, which is why they were on Titanic to begin with. He did love her, he supposed, but not in the way a husband is supposed to love a wife. It was simply platonic.

He showed Derek the drawing more closely, "See the date?"

Derek nodded, "April 14, 1912."

"If your roommate is who he says he is, which he seems to evidently be, he was wearing the diamond the day Titanic sank." Brock turned to face Isaac with a smile, " And that makes you my new best friend. I will happily compensate you for anything you can tell us that will lead to its recovery."

Isaac let out a small laugh, "I don't want your money, Mr. Lovett. I know how hard it is for people who care greatly for money to give some away." 

Bodine was skeptical, "You don't want anything?"

"You may give me this," Isaac said as he pointed to the drawing, " if anything I tell you is of value to your expedition. That and a cup of coffee would be nice. Do we have a deal?"

Lovett smiled and guided Derek and Isaac, "Deal. Over here are a few things we've recovered from your staterooms."

Laid out on a worktable are fifty or so objects, from mundane to valuable. Isaac, slouched in his chair, can see over the table top. With a intriguing look, he lifts a tortoise shell hand mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. He caresses it wonderingly, sudden memories of the object flooding back to him like a river.

"This was mine." Isaac said with a small smile, "Well, my mother's. She gave it to me before she died. How extraordinary! It looks the same as the last time I saw it."

He turned the mirror over and looked at his face in the cracked glass. He looked so different compared to the way he was before. It was like he was seeing a different version of himself in another dimension. This was expected, though. It _had_ been 106 years and for some odd reason he was able to cheat death and skip over many important historical events and eras.

"The reflection has changed a bit." he added.

He spies something else, a silver and moonstone art-nouveau brooch, "Ah, Mrs. Argent's brooch. She wanted to go back for it. Caused quite a fuss. Like just let the damn thing go, woman!" 

Isaac picks up an ornate art-nouveau hair comb. A jade butterfly takes flight on the ebony handle of the comb. He turns it slowly, remembering. Isaac experiences a rush of images and emotions that have lain dormant for almost eleven decades as he handles the butterfly comb.

"Are you ready to go back to Titanic, Isaac?" Lovett asked. 

Isaac looked at Derek for reassurance. Derek put his hand on his shoulder, showing him his support. 

He then looked at Brock, "Okay, I'm ready."

*~*

The imaging shack is a darkened room lined with TV monitors. Images of the wreck fill the screens, fed from Mir One and Two, and the two ROVs, Snoop Dog and Duncan. Isaac stares raptly at the screens. He is enthralled by one in particular, an image of the bow railing. It obviously means something to him. Brock is studying his reactions carefully.

"The bow's struck in the bottom like an axe, from the impact." Bodine explained, "Here... I can run a simulation we worked up on this monitor over here."

Derek and Isaac turn in their chairs so they could see the screen of Bodine's computer. As he is calling up the file, he keeps talking, "We've put together the world's largest database on the Titanic. Okay, here..."

Lovett interrupts him, "Isaac might not want to see this, Lewis. The memories..."  
  
"No," Isaac interjected, " no. It's fine. I'm actually curious."

Bodine starts a computer animated graphic on the screen, which parallels his rapid-fire narration. "She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along... punching holes like a morse code... dit dit dit, down the side." Bodine explained, "Now she's flooding in the forward compartments... and the water spills over the tops of the bulkheads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up... slow at first... and then faster and faster until it's lifting all that weight, maybe 20 or 30 thousand tons... out of the water and the hull can't deal... so ... it splits! Right down to the keel, which acts like a big hinge. Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level... but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods and goes under about 2:20 a.m. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision." The animation then follows the bow section as it sinks. Isaac watches this clinical dissection of the disaster without emotion.

Bodine continues, "The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. KABOOM!" The bow impacts, digging deeply into the bottom, the animation now follows the stern. "The stern implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk. Cool huh?"

Isaac processed everything he was told as Lovett handed him his coffee, "Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course the experience of it was somewhat less clinical." Derek didn't understand a single word, but he was interested in Isaac's experience.

"Will you share it with us?" Lovett asked. Isaac nodded.

His eyes go back to the screens, showing the sad ruins far below them. A view from one of the subs tracks slowly over the boat deck. Isaac recognizes one of the Wellin davits, still in place. He hears ghostly waltz music. The faint and echoing sound of an officer's voice, English accented, calling "Women and children only". Flash cuts of screaming faces in a running crowd. Pandemonium and terror. People crying, praying, kneeling on the deck. Just impressions... flashes in the dark. Isaac looks at another monitor. Snoop Dog moving down a rusted, debris-filled corridor. Isaac watches the endless row of doorways sliding past, like dark mouths. Image of a child, three years old, standing ankle deep in water in the middle of an endless corridor. The child is lost alone, crying. Isaac is shaken by the flood of memories and emotions. His eyes well up and he puts his head down, sobbing quietly. It was a very traumatic experience for him.

Derek felt sorry for the boy, "Isaac, come on. Let's get you rested."

"No!" Isaac said. Her voice is surprisingly strong. The sweet teenage boy was gone, replaced by a boy with eyes of steel and a broken past. Lovett signals everyone to stay quiet.

Lovett spoke in a soft voice, not trying to agitate the boy more than he already was, "Tell us, Isaac. Take as much time as you need. We understand that it is a very touching subject for you."

He looks from screen to screen, the images of the ruined ship. Images and flashbacks of the Titanic flooded back to him, both good and bad. He often focused on the good ones: all the sights he got to see, the loud music he heard when he entered the third-class section of the ship, Scott. _**Scott**_ he remembered so clear and vividly, the strong romantic feelings he felt towards him all coming back to him, slowly and then all at once. Oh, how he missed Scott.

"It's been 106 years..." he said, looking at the screen, "It's been 106 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in." 

Lovett switches on the minirecorder and sets it near him, recording and documenting this historic event first-hand. Isaac continued, "Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was..." 

Isaac remembered everything and he was happy to share his story, despite some traumatic memories.

"Now a picture can speak a thousand words, but a person could do it so much better." he said as he looked at the men before him with a smirk before sipping from the mug of steaming coffee. 

"Mr. Lovett, I suggest you get your popcorn and tape recorders ready because, boy, do I have a story to tell you..."


	2. Chance of A Lifetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You see this?" he said as he looked straight at the sunset, "This I could get used to."
> 
> Liam scoffed, "We're not even first-class, mate. Tell that to me when you're getting smothered in riches and have a big bed to sleep in."
> 
> "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh, Liam, you have to accept life for what it is. Good things do come to those who wait, you know, so grab a chair and enjoy the sweet bliss."

The gleaming white superstructure of Titanic rises mountainously beyond the rail, and above that the buff-colored funnels stand against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen move across the deck, dwarfed by the awesome scale of the steamer. Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. A crowd of hundreds blackens the pier next to Titanic like ants on a jelly sandwich. In FG a gorgeous burgundy Renault touring car swings, hanging from a loading crane. It is lowered toward Hatch #2. On the pier horsedrawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries move slowly through the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and general giddiness. People embrace in tearful farewells, or wave and shout bon voyage wishes to friends and relatives on the decks above. A white Renault, leading a silver-gray Daimler-Benz, pushes through the crowd leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the handsome cars people are streaming to board the ship, jostling with hustling seamen and stokers, porters, and barking White Star Line officials. The Renault stops and the liveried driver scurries to open the door for a young man dressed in a stunning white and navy outfit, with a nice gold watch on his wrist, a light coat, and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He is 17 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with piercing eyes.

It is the boy in the drawing. Isaac. He looks up at the ship, taking it in with cool appraisal.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about." he said in an impassive tone, "It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania."

A personal valet opens the door on the other side of the car for Allison Argent, the 20 year old heir to the elder Argent's fortune. "Ally" is beautiful, arrogant and rich beyond meaning.

"You can be blase about some things, Isaac, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths." she explained as she looked at her fiance with a smile.

Allison turns and fives his hand to Isaac's father, Grant Dennis Lahey, who descends from the touring car behind them. Grant is a 40ish society emperor, from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families. He is a widower, and rules his household with iron will and strong fists. Since the lost of his wife and oldest son, his guilt and grief turned him cold and heartless, especially towards Isaac. Grant abused his son every chance he got behind closed doors. No one knew of the monster Grant Lahey truly was.

"Your son is much too hard to impress, Grant." Allison said as she helped him from the car, "Mind your step."

Isaac grew fearful at the mention of his name to his father. He knew the painful price he'd have to pay later on when nobody was around. He always dreaded it.

Grant gazes at the leviathan, "So this is the ship they say is unsinkable." He looked at Isaac with a look of distaste.

Allison nodded enthusiastically, "It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship even if he tried. Quite amazing, I believe."

Allison speaks with the pride of a host providing a special experience. This entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants. Allison's valet, Spicer Lovejoy, is a tall and impassive, dour as an undertaker. Behind him emerge two maids, personal servants to Grant and Isaac. A White Star Line porter scurries toward them, harried by last minute loading.

"Miss," the porter addressed Allison, "you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way--"

Allison nonchalantly hands the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilate. Five pounds was a monster tip in those days. It was the equivalent to six whole U.S. dollars and sixty-seven cents, a rare meal ticket in England.

She smiled, trying to impress her fellow future father-in-law. "I put my faith in you, good sir." she said before making a hand gesture, indicating her valet, "See my man. He will assist you with the baggage."

Allison never tired of the effect of money on the unwashed masses. She flaunted her wealth every chance she got to show her "upmost superiority" to everyone else. The people always needed to be reminded of who was at the top. At least that's how she worded it. Isaac, on the other hand, hated it. He hated how little and inferior she made anyone who wasn't "on her level", as she liked to say, felt by the overbearing use of her wealth. He always thought of everyone as his equal and he liked to treat people the same way he would like to be treated as opposed to his fiance who treated practically everyone that wasn't rich or of high ranking like a slave or disease. The two were complete opposites: she was snobbish, obnoxious, and a whiny brat whereas he was empathetic, loving, and actually had other interests that weren't sex, money, and power. He just wanted to be himself and live a good life doing what he loved with the person he loved beside him. That person wasn't Allison, that was for sure. In the beginning everything was great for them and he actually started taking an interest in her, but things change. And so do people.

The White Star man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running. Allison breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. She quickly checks her pocket watch, a birthday gift from her father that she loved to flash.

"We'd better hurry." she said with a smile Isaac grew to hate, "This way, gentlemen."

She indicates the way toward the first class gangway, the Lahey men following closely behind. They move into the crowd. Trudy Bolt, Isaac's maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her mister's most recent purchases... things too delicate for the baggage handlers. Allison leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and wellwishers. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above. They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examines their heads one by one, checking scalp and eyelashes for lice. They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph "cinematograph" camera mounted on a tripod. Daniel Marvin (whose father founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. Mary Marvin stands stiffly and smiles, self conscious.

"Look up at the ship, darling," Daniel orchestrated to his wife, capturing the very astonishing moment on film, "that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great."

Mary Marvin, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised. Allison is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past her. And she is bumped again a second later by the boys' father.

"Steady!!" she exclaimed, annoyed.

The man apologizes, "Sorry squire!"

The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.

"Steerage swine." she said in a disgusted tone, "Apparently missed his annual bath."

A familiar voice spoke, "Honestly, Ally, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family." Victoria Argent--40ish and just as cold and manipulative as her daughter--walked over to them, her husband, Chris, following behind. Allison was bad, sure, bad her mother was a whole new level of terrible. Isaac hated the woman with every fiber of his being, but he was obligated to deal with her. Now, Chris Argent wasn't anything like his wife at all. He was similar to Isaac in many aspects, especially treating everyone like an equal and not flaunting his wealth. Isaac and Chris got along very well; he was like a father-figure to Isaac, practically his father in every way: he always supported him and treated him like the son he never had. If the only good things out of his arranged marriage were Chris and the thought of a potential future family, then he would suffer through it the best he could.

Allison kissed her mother on the cheek, "All part of my charm, mother. At any rate, it was my darling fiance's beauty rituals which made us late." Chris rolled his eyes, knowing full-well his daughter was to blame.

Isaac scoffed, "You told me to change." 

Allison chuckled, venomous intentions underneath the sweet tone, "I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, darling. It's bad luck, especially for a love as strong as ours."

"I felt like black." he simply responded, earning a hard nudge from his father, a foreshadowing of what was to come.

Allison guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two tons of Oxford marmalade, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victualling Department.

Allison continued, "Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to your execution." 

Isaac looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them...a great iron wall, Bible black and sever. Allison motions him forward, and he enters the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread. It was the ship of dreams to everyone else, but to Isaac it was a slave ship, taking him back to America in chains. Allison's hand closes possessively over Isaac's arm. He escorts her up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows them. Outwardly he was everything a well brought up boy should be. Inside, though, he was screaming. A screaming blast from the mighty triple steam horns on Titanic's funnels bellowed their departure warning. 

*~*~*~*~*

The Titanic from several blocks away, towering above the terminal buildings like the skyline of a city. The steamer's whistle echoes across Southampton. Inside of a pub, it is  
crowded with dockworkers and ship crews. Just inside the window, a poker game is in progress. Four men, in working class clothes, play a very serious hand.

Scott McCall and Liam Dunbar, both 20 years of age, exchange a glance as the other two players argue in Swedish. Scott is American, a lean and fit drifter with his hair a little long for the standards of the times. He is clean shaven, and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He is an artist, and has adopted the bohemian style of art scene in Paris. He is also very self-possessed and sure-footed for 20, having lived on his own since 13. The two swedes continue their sullen argument, in Swedish.

One of the swedes, Olaf, grew worried, "You stupid fishhead! I can't believe you bet our tickets."

"You lost our money. I'm just trying to get it back. Now shut up and take a card." the other swede, Sven, said.

Scott was intrigued in the bickering of the two swedes. He knew they were slightly intimidated by him and that his skills made them fear to lose their tickets. He also knew that he was wasn't walking away without those tickets. He had major skills in poker and the men would soon be disappointed by the outcome of the game.

"Hit me again, Sven." Scott said in a jaunty tone.

Scott takes the card and slips it into his hand. Scott's eyes. They betray nothing. Liam licks his lips nervously as he refuses a card. Stacked in the middle of the table, bills and coins from four counrties. This has been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money are two third-class tickets for RMS Titanic. The Titanic's whistle blows again. Final warning.

Scott looks at the swedes, "The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."

Liam puts his cards down and so do the Swedes. Scott, however, holds his close.

"Let's see..." Scott began as he skimmed the cards, "Liam's got niente. Olaf, you've got squat. Sven, uh oh... two pair... mmm." The swedes shook their heads in shame at their cards and they hoped he didn't have what they thought he had. He turns to face Liam, "Sorry Liam."

Liam's eyes widen and he starts to rant, "What do you mean 'sorry'? What you got? You lost my money? Ma va fa'n culo testa di cazzo--"

"Sorry, you're not gonna see your mama again for a long time..." Scott continued. With a smirk, he slaps a full house down on the table, "'Cause you're goin' to America!! Full house boys!"

Liam jumped up from his chair and began to cheer in Italian. Scott had won with a full house: threes over sixes. He didn't just win the game, though. He won all the money that was betted along with two third-class tickets to sail abroad the Titanic. The table explodes into shouting in several languages. Scott rakes in the money and the tickets. 

Scott turned to the swedes with a smile, "Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I'm high and you're dry and..." He then turns to Liam, who still couldn't believe Scott had won the game, "... we're going to--"

"L'America!" The two young men shouted in victory.

Olaf balls up one huge farmer's fist. Liam thinks he's going to clobber Scott, but he swings round and punches Sven, who flops backward onto the floor and sits there, looking  
depressed. Olaf forgets about Scott and Liam, who are dancing around, and goes into a rapid harangue of his stupid cousin. Scott kisses the tickets, then jumps on Liam's back and rides him around the pub. It's like they won the lottery.

Scott lets out a happy sigh and continued to bask in his victory, "Goin' home... to the land o' the free and the home of the real hotdogs! On the Titanic! We're ridin' in high style now! We're practically goddamned royalty, ragazzo mio!"

"You see?" Liam said happily, "This is my destinio! Just like I told you. I would go to l'America!! To become a millionaire!" He turned to the pubkeeper with a big smile on his face and he continues, "Capito?? I'm going to America!"

The pubkeeper, Deucalion, chuckled at Liam's excitement. "No, mate. Titanic goes to America. In five minutes."

The young men look at the clock and Deucalion was, indeed, right. Titanic would be leaving for its voyage to America in five minutes. "Shit!! Come on, Liam!" Scott continued as they grabbed their things, "Come on!" Scott then turned to everyone with a large grin and bowed, "It's been grand."

They run for the door.

Deucalion laughed as he watched them run out the door, "'Course I'm sure if they knew it was you lot comin', they'd be pleased to wait!"

*~*~*~*~*

Scott and Liam, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint toward the pier. They tear through milling crowds next to the terminal. Shouts go up behind them as they jostle slow-moving gentlemen. They dodge piles of luggage, and weave through groups of people. They burst out onto the pier and Scott comes to a dead stop... staring at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The Titanic is monstrous. Liam runs back and grabs Scott, and they sprint toward the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as Sixth Officer Moody detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.

"Wait!! We're passengers!" Scott yelled as he and Liam made it to the gangway doors. 

Flushed and panting, he waves the tickets.

Officer Moody looked at the two, "Have you been through the inspection queue?"

"Why of course!" Scott lied cheerfully, "Anyway, we don't have lice, we're Americans. Both of us."

Moody eyed them suspiciously, "Right, come aboard."

Moody has Quartermaster Rowe reattach the gangway. Scott and Liam come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes Scott and Liam through to Rowe. Rowe looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.

"Gundersen." he read Liam's first, then Scott, "And...Gundersen."

He hands the tickets back, eyeing Scott's Mediterranean looks suspiciously. 

Scott grabs Liam's arm, uncomfortable by Rowe's stare "Come on, Sven."

Scott and Liam whoop with victory as they run down the white-painted corridor... grinning from ear to ear.

"We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!" Scott exclaimed.

The mooring lines, as big around as a man's arm, are dropped into the water. A cheer goes up on the pier as seven tugs pull the Titanic away from the quay. Scott and Liam burst through a door onto the aft well deck. Tracking with them as they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the roof deck. They get to the rail and Scott starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.

"You know somebody?" Liam asked as he noticed Scott waving to the crowd.

Scott scoffed, "Of course not, but that's not the point. The point is we're going to America and they're stuck here."

Scott continued to wave at the people, happy to be one of the many occupants on the ship, and said his goodbyes. Grinning, Liam joins in, adding his voice to the swell of voices, feeling the exhilaration of the moment. The crowd of cheering well-wishers waves heartily as a black wall of metal moves past them. Impossibly tiny figures wave back from the ship's rails. Titanic gathers speed. The prow of Titanic behind the lead tug is dwarfed. The bow wave spreads before the mighty plow of the liner's hull as it moves down the River Test toward the English Channel.

Scott and Liam walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sides like a college dorm. Total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages, or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They pass emigrants studying the signs over the doors, and looking up the words in phrase books. They find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. The other two guys are already there. Olaus and Bjorn Gundersen. Scott throws his kit on one open bunk, while Liam takes the other. Olaus and Bjorn look at each other with puzzled looks when they saw Scott and Liam instead of their cousins. All they assumed was that Sven and Olaf had stupidly participated in a game of poker and lost.

*~*~*~*~*

By contrast, the so-called "Millionaire Suite" is in the Empire style, and comprises two bedrooms, a bath, WC, wardrobe room, and a large sitting room. In addition there is a private 50 foot promenade deck outside. A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and hands the Bucks Fizz to Isaac. He is looking through her new paintings. There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings... lost works. Allison is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Isaac in the sitting room.

"Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money." Allison says.

"You're wrong." Isaac replies as he looks at the cubist painting with a small smile, " They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth without logic. What's his name again... ?Picasso."

Allison enters the sitting room and watches Isaac look at the painting in fascination, getting turned on by the back muscles that shown through his shirt. She didn't love Isaac like a wife should love her husband. The attraction was only purely sexual and physical. Behind his back, she'd be with other men and she'd always come right back to him as if she wasn't being unfaithful to him. Isaac knew this, and he hated himself for not confronting her about it. Deep down he knew that if he did confront her he'd have to deal with Victoria and his father and those two together were hard to get through to.

"He'll never amount to a thing, trust me." she said, "At least they were cheap."

A porter wheels Allison's private safe into the room on a handtruck. In the bedroom Isaac enters with the large Degas of the dancers. He sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Trudy is already in there, hanging up some of Isaac's clothes.

"It smells so brand new." Trudy said as she finishes putting Isaac's clothes away, "Like they built it all just for us. I mean...just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I'll be the first--"

Allison appears in the doorway of the bedroom.

"And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first." Allison said as she continued to look at Isaac with hungry and lust-filled eyes.

Trudy blushes at the innuendo and excuses herself from the room. She edges around Allison and makes a quick exit. Allison comes up behind Isaac and puts her hands on his waist due to the height difference between them. An act of possession, not intimacy.

"The first and only." she said, "Forever."

Isaac wore an expression that showed how bleak a prospect this is for him, now. It wasn't the same.

Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit up like a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calm harbor waters. The 150 foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking like a rowboat. The lights of a Cherbourg harbor complete the postcard image.

Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A broad-shouldered woman in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags. At Cherbourg a woman came aboard named Margaret Brown, but everyone called her Molly. History would call her the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what Allison's mother called "new money".

"Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny." Molly said as she handed the porter her bags, "Take 'em the rest of the way if you think you can manage."

At 45, Molly Brown is a tough talking straightshooter who dresses in the finery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them. By the next afternoon they had made their final stop and were steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing out ahead of them but ocean...

*~*~*~*~*

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Scott and Liam stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing so familiar from images of the wreck. Scott leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water. At the bow Scott and Liam lean far over, looking  
down. In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Scott watches the dolphins and grins. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.  
Liam looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sunsparkles.

"I can see the Statue of Liberty already." Liam said as he grinned at Scott, "Very small... of course."

Scott nodded.

"You see this?" he said as he looked straight at the sunset, "This I could get used to."

Liam scoffed, "We're not even first-class, mate. Tell that to me when you're getting smothered in riches and have a big bed to sleep in."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh, Liam, you have to accept life for what it is. Good things do come to those who wait, you know, so grab a chair and enjoy the sweet bliss."

And that's exactly what he did: he grabbed a chair and sat down right next to Scott, admiring the sunset.

The sun set in the sky as fresh colors brushed upon an artist's canvas, as if those rays were destined to create a great work of art - one given to those open to capturing simple moments in the soul. The orange gold stretches far and wide, the color of fire hearths and tangerines. It is but the reflection of the dawn, the promise of the rising sun that comes after the velvety night has had its say and the land has rested once more. With the setting sun came a sky of fire, the orange of every wintry hearth. It was the battle cry to the gathering night, that the only achievement of darkness is to show starlight all the more clearly. 

Scott watches the sea, lost in the rhythmic percussion of waves on sand. His eyes are steady to the horizon, face aglow with the last orange rays before twilight beckons the stars. His lips bear the semblance of a smile, just enough to show that he is enjoying his thoughts, whatever they may be. Liam moves closer so that he feels his presence, yet stays quiet, allowing him to stay lost in the moment a while longer. At the edge of the cloud there was a brilliant white patch, like a turning page catching the sun. The rest was dove grey with a subtle hint of purple, just enough to announce the coming sunset. The sunset was merely a prelude to the dawn, yet its majesty filled their minds with the most beautiful of dreams. As his eyes drift to rest and daydream he is one with the universe, his skin cooled by the breeze, and when he awakes the sky will be just as radiant.


End file.
